Note to myself

I remember writing a few posts a while back heavily criticising Libya for detaining the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian trainee. I will think again before jumping to conclusions on why such things happen when they do.

The US is still holding five Iranians who were seized in January. American officials say the five include the operations chief and other members of Iran's elite Quds Force, which is accused of arming and training Iraqi militants.

For its part, Iran is holding several Iranian-Americans on spying charges, although it freed an American-Iranian academic last week.